I like word games. Especially little ones that take a couple of minutes to play. One of my favourites is Moxie on the iPhone.

There's a sequel to it called Moxie 2, but I don't like that one much and rarely play it. Recently, Moxie did some promotion inside the app and recommended a new game by the same author called Red Herring.

I started playing this and it's tough. I love it. It's free, and you get a free daily puzzle. I showed Anne and she's into it too. Every day, we get the latest puzzle and we work at it. Some are easy and we get it out in 5 or 10 minutes. Some of them are tricky and it takes a lot of work to get them out. If they were always easy, they wouldn't be as much fun. It's a sense of accomplishment to get them out. You get a matrix of words or phrases. Each column should have a theme or meaning. You move the words around until you discover the ones that form the column. Four of them are red herrings, to throw you off discovery. There are three levels of play, and we play on the hardest.

Then, in a wonderful bit of promotion, Red Herring told me about another new game by the author - Monkey Wrench. This one is much easier, but still fun to do. Three levels of play, and a free daily puzzle to do. You have to pick words or phrases out of a jumble, and match them to clues. It's fun. I like it. Not as hard as Red Herring, but still fun.

But it keeps on going. Monkey Wrench recommended a new game by the same author - 7 Little Words. I played the introductory games and thought it was pretty easy. Then I started playing the daily puzzles, and it wasn't so easy any more. You can choose a US or UK dictionary, and we both independently chose the UK dictionary. It's free. There are free daily puzzles. It's fun.

In each game, you get a small number of free hints. Once you use them up, you can buy more hints. We have resisted this. There are also giant puzzle packs to buy, but we haven't done that either. So far, the daily puzzles are fun. It's like a daily ritual. First thing to do out of bed is hit 7 Little Words and Monkey Wrench, then tackle Red Herring. We both play them every day. There is competition between the two of us. Scoffings like "today's Red Herring is really easy. Only took me 5 minutes" and "you won't get 7 Little Words out tonight" which makes us both dig down and solve them.

Red Herring can be tricky. The last one involved four moons of Saturn, four streaming music services, and four characters in Cheers. I was going down wrong alleys with Toy Story characters. Anyway, great fun.